Handheld Addict

Friday, April 23, 2010

Tornado Outbreak

So I've been playing Tornado Outbreak a little bit...

Wow. This game just totally bites.

What a *SHIT* game! What the hell, Reviews on the Run???

Yes this game has a great core mechanic of playing as a tornado that gets bigger the more it sucks up. But the constraints coupled with the indecipherable story RUIN any momentum or fun that could be had with that awesome idea.

[pauses writing to watch the Canucks game]

So the game is basically this: you start as a small tornado, you have to collect a certain number of yellow fire-guys, then this device-thingy activates, and you have to jump into it, all before time runs out.

The story & characters... well I can't make heads or tails of it. Which usually isn't that important; look at Katamari-- but here, elements of the story play an important part of the gameplay. There are these little yellow fire-guys, and I can't tell if they're friends or enemies, but you need to bust things they hide in then hold down B which causes them to swirl around you-- you're still sucking them in but slower than normal-- you need to get as many little fire-guys swirling around you as possible before they are inevitably sucked in. If you have enough, you'll get a time bonus. The problem is, you get like a +7 second time bonus. Oh yay, 7 seconds! And you start with 3 minutes to finish the level. To find like 50 fire-guys & get into the device-thingy.

I hate time limits, they are one of worst outdated and cheap game mechanics in the history of video games. but I'm going to write a separate post about that. I can see the use of time limits in Tornado Outbreak to give it some challenge, but the time is so short that it wrecks the game; it doesn't matter how big the map is or how cool it is to grow larger and suck up buildings & whatnot, because you don't have the time to go very far away from the whatever-device that you have to jump into once you've got enough fire-guys.

Did I mention once you hold down the B and the fire-guys are swirling around you you slow right down? But as soon as you get a fire-guy you get a small speed boost, like a sprint for a second. So you have to get lucky enough to chain a bunch of fire-guy grabs together so that enough are swirling around you before they get sucked in. All to get your extra 7 seconds....

This crap game mechanic makes it so it barely even matters how large you grow because it doesn't make much difference how big you are-- all that matters is the number of fire-guys swirling around you. It's really stupid.

Maybe I just suck at this game, I've been trying to figure out how many fire-guys are needed to gain a significant time boost. I know 4 doesn't give you jack-squat. 10 will give you a bit, but how the hell does one string 10 together unless they are exactly beside each other??

Tornado Outbreak..... how the hell can anyone give this game a good rating? I will try it a little more & see if I can't make it work for me... I dunno.